Re: Arabic numbers

From: Behnam (behnam.rassi@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 15 2007 - 17:49:05 CST

  • Next message: Ed Trager: "Re: Arabic numbers"

    On 15-Mar-07, at 2:44 PM, Hans Aberg wrote:

    > On 14 Mar 2007, at 23:14, James Tu wrote:
    >
    >> We are working on a kid's website that targets 5 languages and one
    >> of them is Arabic. We were wondering whether we should be using
    >> 0123456789 (arabic numbers) vs ٠١٢٣٤٣٥٦٧٨٩ (indian
    >> numbers, I found out that the real Arabic numbers are called
    >> indian numbers. :) ) This will mostly be used when a user is
    >> entering and ID number to log into the site.
    >
    > Though not a children's site, here is one in both English and Arabic:
    > http://www.aljazeera.net/
    > http://english.aljazeera.net/
    >
    > Hans Aberg

    The problem of Mr. Tu is a minor one, and characters to be used for
    logging in is not really a language issue.
    I also can not speak for Arabs but I give you another example of
    adult sites, this one in Persian. The journalists of BBC Persian site
    are very knowledgeable Persian writers and maintain an outstanding
    standard of Persian writing. They KNOW that English numbers within
    Persian text don't belong. Yet the numbers are English. This can only
    be a technological limitation forced upon them.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/story/2007/03/070315_v-iran-
    nuclrear-reso3.shtml
    I view this page with UTF-8 encoding. The numbers are English. I'm
    told IE browsers on PC manage to display them in Persian (Indic).
    Nevertheless the encoding is in English.
    Many people may refer to this page and conclude that English numbers
    in Persian text is an acceptable behavior in Persian language. It is
    not.
    How reliable would be our conclusion, when viewing Aljazeera?

    Behnam



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